Education & Training

PhD Program

The PhD in Bioethics and Health Policy Program is taught by leading experts in the fields of bioethics and health policy, who provide unparalleled training, education and mentoring to the next generation of bioethics scholars. This PhD program is unique in the opportunities it affords students to conduct innovative original scholarship in a premier international research institution, focused specifically on public health ethics and bioethics and health policy.

Scholarly Life at the Berman Institute

Students in the Bioethics PhD program constitute a vital and important part of the academic community at the Berman Institute of Bioethics. Students are encouraged to participate fully in a wide range of scholarly, teaching and public engagement activities. These include participating in the semi-annual ‘research retreats’ at which faculty, fellows, and students present works-in-progress, and attending the Berman Institute’s bi-monthly seminar series at which prominent scholars from other institutions lecture on emerging research interests.

The PhD program in bioethics and health policy is a concentration within the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health’s Department of Health Policy and Management (HPM), offered in collaboration with the Berman Institute of Bioethics. For complete information, including admissions requirements, visit the Department of HPM’s PhD Concentration in Bioethics & Health Policy website.

The PhD program in Bioethics and Health Policy is distinguished from other bioethics doctoral programs in two ways:

The PhD program focuses on bioethics as it relates to moral questions in public health and health policy (rather than, for example, in clinical decision-making or bedside dilemmas).

  • Students and faculty in this concentration study and conduct independent research on ethical issues in public health practice, research, and policy such as: ethics and emergency preparedness, domestic and international research ethics, genetic screening policy, ethics and obesity prevention, ethics and infectious diseases, resource allocation and social justice.

The PhD program provides rigorous training in quantitative and qualitative empirical research methods.

  • By the end of their PhD training, students are prepared to provide not only normative recommendations regarding ethics and public health policy but also are equipped to function as independent researchers, conducting empirical research related to bioethics, public health and health policy.

Our PhD program focuses on bioethics in public health and health policy and provides rigorous training in quantitative and qualitative empirical research methods.

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Current PhD Students
Danielle Edwards
PhD Student
Sheethal Jose
PhD Student
Ariella Messing
PhD Student

Program Alumni

Program alumni

Our PhD alumni go on to successful and prominent careers in the field of bioethics. Our alumni include:

Academe

Neal Dickert, MD
Cardiologist, Associate Professor of Medicine, Emory University

Michael DiStefano
Assistant Professor, University of Colorado Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences

Rachel Fabi
Assistant Professor of Bioethics and Humanities, Upstate Medical University

Jane Forman
Core Faculty, Clinician Scholars Program at the University of Michigan Medical School;Director of the Qualitative and Mixed Methods Core at the VA Ann Arbor HSR&D Center for Clinical Management Research

Krista Harrison
Associate Professor of Medicine, University of California San Francisco

Jessica Holzer
Associate Professor in Health Sciences, University of New Haven

Summer Johnson-McGee
President, Salem College

Andrea Kalfoglou
Associate Professor of Public Health, University of Maryland, Baltimore County

JP Leider
Senior fellow, University of Minnesota School of Public Health (SPH); founding director of the SPH Center for Public Health Systems

National Institutes of Health

Sara Chandros Hull
Director, Bioethics Core,  National Human Genome Research Institute

Leila Jamal
Associate Director for Cancer Genomics, Johns Hopkins/NIH Genetic Counseling Training Program

Julia Slutsman
Director of Genomic Data Sharing Policy Implementation, NIH

Holly Taylor
Research Bioethicist, NIH

Health Care Innovation

Lee-Lee Ellis
Health Care Director, Payor Reform, Arnold Ventures

Vanessa Kuhn
VP, Go-to-market Operations, Memora Health

Amy Paul
Director of Professional Services, Vital Wave

Danielle Whicher
Health Services Researcher and Policy Professional, Mathematica

Non-Profit/Research

Jason Gerson
Senior Program Officer, Clinical Effectiveness and Decision Science program, Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute

Carleigh Krubiner
Bioethics Lead, Wellcome Trust

Christian Morales
Health Policy Researcher and Bioethicist, Educational Alliance 

Medical Practice

Ingrid Burger, MD
Radiologist, Chief of Ultrasound, Kaiser Permanente Los Angeles Medical Center

Program Faculty

Ruth R. Faden, PhD, MPH
Berman Institute Founder; Philip Franklin Wagley Professor of Biomedical Ethics
Kadija Ferryman, PhD
Assistant Professor
Jeffrey Kahn, PhD, MPH
Andreas C. Dracopoulos Director; Robert Henry Levi and Ryda Hecht Levi Professor of Bioethics and Public Policy
Nancy E. Kass, ScD
Deputy Director for Public Health; Phoebe R. Berman Professor of Bioethics and Public Health
Maria Merritt, PhD
Associate Professor
Stephanie Morain, PhD, MPH
Assistant Professor
Brendan Saloner, PhD
PhD Program Director; Bloomberg Associate Professor of American Health
Jeremy Sugarman, MD, MPH, MA
Deputy Director for Medicine; Harvey M. Meyerhoff Professor of Bioethics and Medicine